Apparently there has been a lot going on behind the scenes with the shooting of Map Kong that was not made aware to the general public until this week and these include the following:

1. The bodycam video was finally released after the grand jury.

2. The grand jury which was in Dakota County decided to clear all the officers of the shooting.

If you look at the video (and there is youtube video as well which is easier to watch), Map Kong is doing exactly what people described - acting erratically and waving a knife. Obviously he wasn't in a good state of mind. As police officers tried to calm him down, trying to get a better look at what was inside the car they decided to break the window and to tase him. Map Kong then tries to flee with his back turned to police.

And then they shot him multiple times.

In the back while he was running away.

So let's get this straight. He wasn't a threat when they were close up to his car and tasing him - they didn't feel threatened enough to shoot him in the car.

But then he runs - and he doesn't try and run towards any traffic or cars - but away - and that's when he posed a threat?

When his back was turned to everyone?

Not everyone will agree with me - but I stand by the same argument that I've said over and over still after seeing the video: With all of those police officers there and multiple cars they could have - and should have - not shot him.

There ABSOLUTELY was a way to take him down without firing on him.

And think about all the other times you see White People try and get away from the cops and try to outrun them.

Do they get shot in the back while running away?

The answer is typically no.

When hundreds of White Men defend their land with armed weapons - not a knife - they don't pose an imminent threat - but an Asian American man with a knife - who's running AWAY from the police?

Apparently he does.

And it begs the question of what is an Asian American man's life worth?

It does amaze me if people don't know who Vincent Chin was but at the same time, maybe they just didn't for whatever reason. That's why you still have to remember year after year.

Vincent Jen Chin[1] (simplified Chinese: 陈果仁; traditional Chinese: 陳果仁; pinyin: Chén Guǒrén; May 18, 1955 – June 23, 1982) was a Chinese American man who was severely beaten in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park, Michigan in June of 1982. The beating led to his death four days later.

The perpetrators were Chrysler plant superintendent Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz. The lenient sentencing of these two men in a plea bargain generated public outrage over the murder attack, which included blows to the head from a baseball bat and possessed attributes consistent with hate crimes. Many of the layoffs in Detroit's auto industry, including Nitz's in 1979, had been due to the increasing market share of Japanese automakers, leading to allegations that Vincent Chin received racially charged comments attributing to the layoffs while being beaten.[2]

Ebens and Nitz initially faced a charge of second-degree murder, but were convicted in a county court for manslaughter. Ebens was convicted of violating Chin's civil rights and was sentenced to 25 years of prison, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. They were both sentenced to three years of probation.

The case became a rallying point for the Asian American community, and Ebens and Nitz were put on trial for violating Chin's civil rights. Because the subsequent Federal prosecution was a result of public pressure from a coalition of many Asian ethnic organizations, Vincent Chin's murder is often considered the beginning of a pan-ethnic Asian American movement.

So when a Black boy gets away from his mom and gets into harms way and a gorilla gets shot with the boy being alive - people make petitions and call for investigations into the mother and family and all these animal activists come out, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah and a TON of people blame the mother (who just happens to be Black).

But when a 2-year old White kid dies because the 2-year old was allowed to wade in the water which was clearly not allowed (because it was dangerous) by his White dad, there's GoFundMe pages and outpourings of public support?

Just a random thought as I think about all the press people are getting these days and sometimes - I just want me some more Randall Park.

Cause he's sexy as a MF.

And he can make me laugh.

And cry (well maybe not cry per se, but I feel it deep).

I mean put all that together, and I want me some man meat.

Randall Park man meat.

Meet me in the park and I'll give you a 'daller?

Oh...if K-Wife ever divorces me...I know what the next tattoo will be that I'm getting on my right testicle...('cause I still have a little room on that one - my left one - I really gotta stretch it out to even read anything...).

I'd rather lose all my stuff than lose myself, because I've done that before, and that feels way worse. I don't have the best family life. I'm not going to have a sob story and be like, my parents abandoned me, because they didn't. But they also are not that present. When I’m alone, I’m alone. I don't have anybody to call, and so I have to create meaning from myself. That's why I don't give a fuck, because I can't lose anything. What I have I make myself.

From a U.S. perspective, I don't need to have everything I own be a household brand. And a lot of times, I can't find what I want in those brands anyway and I think you can get great tech and gadgets from so many other places at better costs. So I'm always on the lookout for new gadget and tech reviews and JohnyTechReview fell into my lap when I was searching on a LED projector.

I didn't even know floating bluetooth enabled orbs that you could spin existed.

Now I want one.

Or how about a review of the Rosewill RHRC-13002 10 Cup Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker and Food Steamer?

Edit: I've heard that a gofundme campaign will be getting started. If and when it comes about and I am made aware of it I will post it here.

55-year-old Channy Kek was a Cambodian American interpreter for Regions Hospital here in St. Paul who lost her life this past Tuesday when a car struck her as she was walking in the crosswalk with attempts by her co-workers to revive her being unsuccessful. She was dedicated to helping people get the health care that they needed, often going above and beyond what she needed to do so she could explain in detail to others. She was mother to three and she was active in her community.

You can read some of the articles that they've written about her here.

It's just unfortunate when something like this happens and it's an opportunity to make sure (for me) just to go back to basics from a driving standpoint - try to be alert and remember that a few minutes late is okay --- and the driver has cooperated and there haven't been any charges, so I would not want to go into speculating what happened - but it makes me think about my own driving.

While I didn't know Channy Kek myself personally, I have friends and family members who did, and it just brings it closer to home again, how fragile life can be and how we should make sure we're spending it doing what we love as much as we can and with the people we want to be around.

First let me say that by waste of space I mean waste of space in regard to your politics - not the fact that your a mom who needs to raise a child - although I feel for them. In that way you're allowed to take up space in this great land of ours, because that's what we do.

We're a country of freedom, giving the benefit of the doubt, at its heart a country of misfits who rebelled against the status quo to have a brighter future.

Do you even realize how the same people and mindset that you're pulling for won't think twice about sending your ass back if there's a Conflict 3.0?

Maybe you'll get a stay in Singapore and Vietnam.

Anyway - because your FB post says it all and I don't have any more time to ponder this - and while there's hardly a chance of this ever happening...

Sheva: As I’ve researched this topic, your name pops up over and over; you’ve written about this on a lot of different sites many different times. I suppose my first question would be: why do you think more people don’t write about it?

Bao: By and large, the burden of bringing up, and writing about, race seems to be placed on people of color. Race is still a very touchy subject in all media and all spheres of life. And concerning Asian and Asian American representation, I think there’s also this assumption that, since there are Asians working in game development, it’s a non-issue. That assumption is wrong in several ways: 1) Asians working in game development in Asia don’t necessarily have the same experience and lens regarding representation as we do in the U.S. 2) Just because you have Asian bodies does not mean you have an Asian politic 3) If it’s a non-issue because Asians work in the industry, why don’t we see more Asian playable characters? Some of the most well known Japanese franchises – Metal Gear Solid, Mario, Zelda, Resident Evil, many of the games in the Final Fantasy series, etc – feature white characters or characters with Anglo features.

A few weeks back I saw the video below where I learned about Kina Grannis and her band getting detained in Indonesia for 3 months because of work visa's that the touring company/operators didn't secure.

I disappeared for a few months at the end of last year — perhaps you noticed. I re-emerged in January, and while I wasn’t ready to share my story then, I promised that when I was ready, I would. But, I needed time. Time to be at home with my family and friends; to just exist without having to explain or understand or analyze what had happened. Or perhaps I needed to do just that, but from the privacy of my own home, inside my own brain; to try to make some sense of it all before I was ready to talk about it out in the open. So I’ve taken my time, slowly reacquainting myself with my life and my music and my work and the online world. I’ve started feeling like myself again. However, with life finally inching its way back to normalcy, the thought of reliving the experience just as it’s starting to loosen its grip on me hasn’t felt entirely appealing. I’ve debated quietly moving on and putting it behind me, but as much as part of me has felt compelled to do just that, there is another, bigger part of me that feels like in order to really move past it, I need to share it first. Maybe because I feel like there is something to be learned here. Or maybe because I hope that with sharing it will come some healing, too. Maybe I’m afraid that if I just let it fade away as if it never happened, it will all have been for nothing — as if I’d simply been robbed of those months of my life. In any case, I’m ready to share my story now, or at least the parts of it I'm comfortable disclosing at this time. So here it is, the Cliff’s Notes version of my 100 days in Jakarta.

Indonesia - meet Vietnam.

Oh wait.

Trời ơi!

You've met.

I'm always rooting for Kina Grannis and remember her coming onto the Asian American mass radar in a big way in 2008 for winning the Crash the Super Bowl music contest.

If you're not up to speed on the Harambe killing and the Gregg/Dickerson family check some info out here, here, and here.

Here are some of my random thoughts on it all:

1. I love animals and I think they should be treated well. At the same time, I grew up in part on a farm with animals. There's a hierarchy. When an animal threatens the life of a human there's really only one way this is going to play out, and say what you want - but when push comes to shove, if it would be their life at stake - they'd want to stay alive.

2. Doesn't mean no one feels bad about the gorilla.

3. Can people stop fucking around with the mom? She was interviewed for around 90 minutes according to reports and the police have said that no charges were being brought to the parents. Shit people. If I had a dollar for every time I disobeyed my parents, or did things out of their watchful eye (or what they thought was watchful) - I would have been a rich, rich, kid.

4. Put this into perspective a little - Susan Klebold just wrote a book A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of the Columbine Tragedy. And yes, we know the family went though divorce and bankruptcy. I'm just saying - think anyone will publish a book from Michelle Gregg years later? Oh wait, that's right...

Glad to see that at least they didn't keep her there for a month (or longer...), but not great that she was kept there in the first place:

Dolly Khuu ran into her family's arms at the arrival gate of Norfolk International Airport just before 2 a.m. Friday. The embrace with her two daughters and son lasted more than five minutes. "I fight hard to be here with them. I say no matter what, I have to be home because I do nothing wrong," said Dolly. Dolly tells News 3 while she was detained, she did not give up on her message. She saw being in prison as a chance to speak directly to the government about what was wrong with communist Vietnam. "They have no rights and freedom at all and that make me feel like I need to speak for them. Not on their behalf, but on behalf of freedom and human rights that they should have," said Dolly.

Today the White House is announcing a new Federal policy statement from the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education on better supporting our country’s youngest dual language learners (DLLs) in early childhood programs. The Obama Administration will be joined by public and private sector organizations that will also announce new commitments to support DLLs. Additionally, the White House, in collaboration with Too Small to Fail and Invest in US, is holding a regional convening today at the United Way Center for Excellence in Early Education in Miami, FL to highlight the importance of supporting our country’s DLLs in early childhood programs.

Data indicate that about one in five school-aged children speak a language other than English at home, a figure that has more than doubled in the past few decades. Estimates suggest that this number may be even higher for learners under the age of six; for example, nearly a third of children in Head Start programs are DLLs. Research with young DLLs clearly reflects that children’s bilingual skill development promotes overall language development and should be encouraged.

The Federal policy statement being released today recognizes the cultural and linguistic assets of this population of children, and provides important resources and recommendations to the early childhood field to ensure that our nation’s early education programs are accessible to these families, and that they appropriately foster the learning and development of this large and growing group of children. Today’s announcements also mark progress on the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, which aims to ensure that all young people, including children of color, can reach their full potential.

Collectively, today’s Federal actions include:

· A New Federal Policy Statement on More Effectively Supporting Dual Language Learners in Early Childhood Programs: The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education (ED) will release a Federal policy statement on supporting DLLs in early childhood settings. The statement includes comprehensive policy recommendations to States and to early childhood programs. It also recommends that States and local communities work together to ensure that all early childhood programs are welcoming and linguistically accessible to families of DLLs, foster children’s emerging bilingualism and learning more broadly, and support the early childhood workforce in building their capacity to stimulate the learning of DLLs.

· A New DLL Electronic Toolkit for Programs, Early Educators, Child Care Providers, and Families: The new DLL Toolkit, released by HHS’ Office of Head Start, includes free resources on supporting the learning and development- including dual language development - of DLLs at home, in early learning settings, and in the community. The DLL toolkit will be available at no cost to all early childhood programs, including all Head Start programs, which serve more than 300,000 DLLs every day. The toolkit will also be disseminated to home visitors in all 50 States supported by the Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program, and the families they serve.

Additional Announcements Made at Today’s Convening Include:

· Too Small to Fail, in partnership with the Early Learning Coalition of Miami- Dade and Monroe County and Univision will launch a new citywide “Talking is Teaching: Talk, Read, Sing” public awareness campaign in Miami, with an emphasis on reaching families of young DLLs. The campaign promotes early brain and language development by encouraging parents to engage in meaningful activities with their young children starting at birth -- like counting toes while giving a bath or singing a song while changing a diaper. Miami is the seventh community with which Too Small to Fail has partnered, with three more expected this summer. Too Small to Fail also promoted a set of parent and early educator resources developed in partnership with HHS and ED–- in both English and Spanish - to encourage parents and early educators to talk, read, and sing with young DLL's in their home language.

· First Five California will announce that they are developing a $16 million DLL Pilot to identify effective culturally and linguistically responsive strategies to better support young children who are DLLs. The pilot will focus on three priority areas while ensuring they are scalable and implementable across California’s multi-lingual early learning settings. The strategies include: professional development for early educators and program directors on successful teaching strategies and curricula approaches to promote dual language acquisition; proven practices to partner with families of DLLs; and appropriate child and program assessment tools.

· The University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and BrainSciences will release a new report on bilingual language learning in young children. The report showcases the Institute’s latest studies demonstrating that the baby brain is fully capable of learning multiple languages at the same time. The report also describes major milestones in bilingual language learning and highlights the cognitive benefits of bilingualism, including enhanced abilities to control attention, think flexibly, and update information in working memory.

· The Civil Rights Project at the University of California Los Angeles will release a new research brief outlining the economic benefits of bilingualism in a global economy. The report includes findings that suggest that the average difference in earnings between a children who lose their home language, compared to those who keep their home language and become bilingual, is more than $5,400 annually.

· The National Head Start Association will partner with Head Start programs across the nation, business bureaus, and local chambers of commerce, to develop and widely disseminate a toolkit to promote two-generation best practices that support the parents of DLLs in areas such as job training, enrolling in adult education programs, and accessing English language courses, in order to foster family stability and promote child wellness. The toolkit will include a review of best practice examples from Head Start programs that are supporting two generation approaches for children who are DLLs and their families, and guidance for how to replicate the best practices across the country.

· New America will release a new report citing the significance of increasing the linguistic diversity of educators in the early childhood workforce. The report highlights the gap between the proportion of children who speak a language other than English at home, and the proportion of educators who speak a language other than English fluently. The authors outline a comprehensive research agenda to identify the barriers to increasing linguistic diversity in preschool through third grade settings, and the best strategies to move forward.

These actions build on President Obama’s broader agenda to expand access to high quality early education for all children. Over the course of the President’s time in office, he has:

· Improved and Expanded Head Start: For over 50 years, Head Start has been at the heart of America’s communities. From our urban and rural neighborhoods, to our farmworker communities and tribal nations, it has played an important role in the lives of more than 32 million children and their families. The Obama Administration has invested an additional $4 billion in the program, and implemented important reforms to raise Head Start’s standards, focus on school readiness results, and promote accountability, including the launch of a new process designed to ensure that only the most capable and highest quality programs receive Head Start grants. Head Start and Early Head Start have grown by an additional 40,000 children in the years since President Obama took office.

· Launched the new Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships: Research indicates that gaps in development begin to form as early as the first year of life. Through the President’s signature Early Head Start-Child Care Partnerships, we have expanded access to high quality early learning opportunities to more than 30,000 additional infants and toddlers in 275 communities across America by creating strong partnerships between our Early Head Start grantees and child care providers that serve young children. These Partnerships are building early learning capacity and infrastructure in the neighborhoods across our country that need it most- and for our children who need it most. To date, these grants are working to enhance the quality of 1200 child care centers and more than 600 family child care homes across the country.

· Launched the Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program: In 2009, President Obama launched the MIECHV program to support pregnant women and families and help parents with young children tap the resources and hone the skills they need to raise children who are physically, socially, and emotionally healthy and ready for school. To date, the MIECHV program has provided 2.3 million home visits, reaching nearly 150,000 families across all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and five territories.

· Signed a new and improved child care bill into law and put forward a bold plan to expand access to high quality affordable child care: In 2014, President Obama signed a landmark Child Care and Development Block Grant reauthorization into law, marking a significant step forward in improving our child care system. The new law makes important reforms including shoring up standards that help ensure our children are safe and healthy while they are in child care and ensuring continuity of services. It also increases the amount of funding states can use to increase the quality of their child care systems. A few months later, during his State of the Union address, the President put forth a landmark child care proposal that would guarantee all eligible families with young children have access to affordable, high quality child care. The proposal would also ensure that child care workers have greater access to training and higher education-- and commensurate with new competencies, higher and more fair compensation.

· Invested in High Quality Preschool and Proposed a Bold Plan to Expand Access to all 4-year-olds: In his 2013 State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed a landmark plan that would ensure that all 4-year-olds from middle- and low- income families have access to high-quality preschool. Since his call to action, 38 states and D.C. have increased funding in their public preschool programs, investing an additional $1.5 billion, and totaling almost $7 billion in investments this year alone. Beyond these state investments, the President has dedicated $750 million- through his signature Preschool Development Grant program - in high quality preschool, so that 230 high-need communities can provide more than 100,000 additional children with access to preschool.

· Launched the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC): The Obama Administration invested over $1 billion in 20 States through the Early Learning Challenge, a competitive fund that enabled states to increase the quality of their early education programs, to establish higher standards across programs and to provide critical links with health, nutrition, mental health, and family support for our neediest children. By December of 2014, more than 200,000 children with high needs are enrolled in the highest quality state-funded preschool programs across the 20 States, and nearly 230,000 children with high needs are enrolled in the highest quality child care programs. This effort has also helped to almost double the number of early childhood programs participating in initiatives to improve their quality in those 20 States. This effort has also helped to almost double the number of early childhood programs participating in initiatives to improve their quality in those 20 States.

· In December 2014, the White House held the Summit on Early Education where President Obama announced over $ 1 billionin new public and private investmentsfor early education. More than $330 million in new actions from corporate and philanthropic leaders and $750 million in new Federal grants were announced to support early education. The President also released a Playbook to offer strategies for local leaders to develop and expand early education in their communities.

I don't care what color or ethnicity a person is and how bad they feel they got the shaft - going off on a killing spree is COMPLETELY FUCKED UP and you have to ask the question of how this gets into someone's mind to go on a cross country killing spree. Plenty of people get the shaft - or feel like they got the shaft - and you don't see them blowing everyone to the fucking ground.

Seriously - WTF is wrong with people?

And don't tell me it has anything to do with his ethnicity, race, or religion (because we don't even know anything about that yet and even if we do - that's not the case).

Sure - some people will and have already come out with their subtle or not so subtle racism - and while I can understand pain and anger - you can't judge a whole shitload of people on one person (or else that means that the White Kids should get put into detention far more than the kids of color do because of mass shootings - which we all know isn't right).

It's sad that we have to make posts, tweets, blurbs, and status messages about both the killing of innocent people while still having to call out racism. I mean how fucked up is it that we still need to do that at the same time? And no - it's not our fault that we have to do it - don't lay that part of it on our shoulders because we're not the ones who bring it.

My condolences to the families who were shot by this man and I hope at some point in their life they can have some peace in their lives.

This was a good article to read and the show of solidarity is great to see.

Dylan Yang's mother, Anna Vue, was among the hundreds of demonstrators in downtown Wausau on Tuesday, assembled to protest injustice and bullying and to show support for Yang and his family. The Save Our Children peace march was a protest and a response to the March trial of 16-year-old Dylan Yang, who was convicted as an adult of first-degree reckless homicide [...] Others came to show solidarity. Tony Gonzalez, the executive director of Comunidad Hispana in Merrill, attended and called for equal justice for everyone. Alix Shabazz came from Madison with the group Freedom Inc. "As a black person, I stand in solidarity with the Hmong community and with Dylan Yang," Shabazz said. "America has never been beautiful for people of color."

Outlook Inspirations nominee Huong Dang Thi was born in Vietnam, left school at a young age and ended up homeless on the streets of Hanoi. But with the help of a foundation called KOTO, she's now become a sucessful graduate student in Australia and has been appointed a student ambassador working to help other disadvantaged young people

Thinking about the last post it made me think how I liked Oh My Ghostess on a whole, but the ending somehow seemed forced in a way to me. It just wasn't as satisfying as I had hoped it would be. Then I saw an add for Soulmate and I remembered how satisfying that ending was - even though it was still filled with longing (hopeful longing) - it was natural.

2008 Year In Review

If you're looking for the 2008 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).

2007 In Review Posts

If you're looking for the 2007 In Review Posts, the link list has been moved out, but you can still get to them all by following this link which pulls them up by label (they'll be in reverse so go to the oldest post to read them in order).

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